Microsoft is considering a u-turn in its Windows upgrade plan and releasing an update to XP before shipping its next generation operating system, Longhorn. The possible change of heart - Microsoft had previously sworn not to create any more versions of Windows before Longhorn - may indicate that the major product is further …

At the RSA Conference last week, Bill Gates mapped out Microsoft's proposals for tackling spam. Of note are the company's Co-ordinated Spam Reduction Initiative (CSRI) and a technical proposal for email that's likened by many to the phone industry's caller-ID system.
CSRI includes a roadmap for policy and technology …

Adobe has allied with GridIron Software to deliver the first mass market grid product. This is a version of Adobe After Effects that can be bought through retail channels and is designed to enable smaller businesses to use grid techniques, where processes are run over a pool of low cost networked servers.
The new version of …

In the dim and distant past we would have described Vignette as a “personalization engine,” to create web sites that mutated depending upon who was looking at them. Somewhere in the last decade Vignette has shifted over to a generalized all singing, all dancing content management firm. Now lured by potential “Sarbanes Oxley” …

Why would SAP, which has its own Business Warehouse software, sign a partnership with Teradata this week, a company that might be considered a competitor to its software? The truth about the continued success of Teradata, in the face of challenges from Microsoft, Oracle and IBM in the business intelligence market, is that the …

IBM’s big push at Linux World is to announce new programs to help customers dump Window NT and move straight to Linux. IBM’s logic is that by the end of 2004, Microsoft will discontinue support for the Windows NT operating system and discontinue the availability of security patches, which will require up to two million customers …

Adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) based on the browser-based SSL technology is shaping up to be one of the key trends of 2004, especially as enterprises mobilize their workforces.
SSL allows for secure access to corporate networks from virtually any browser and so provides flexibility for roaming workers with laptops …

Quantum says that it is ready to ship its next disk-based backup system, the DX100, a step up from its existing DX30.
Quantum, describes it as an enterprise class device,
capable of backup and restore processes for large, multiple data centers running mission-critical CRM, ERP and database applications.
The system has …

At next week’s LinuxWorld conference in New York, IBM will show off the upcoming 64-bit version of its DB2 database for Linux, enhancing clustering and scalability capabilities and providing a port to non-Intel boxes.
Heading the list of improvements will be a Linux-based
DB2 partition adviser for automating cluster management …

Apple this week claimed it has leapfrogged the price performance of storage systems from Sun, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and EMC and is offering its new RAID storage subsystem for Windows and Linux as well as the native Mac Unix OS.
The Xserve RAID is a rackmounted system delivering 3.5 terabytes of storage capacity, with throughput …

The main thrust of Intel’s chip push will be focused
on the consumer market this year and this week saw president Paul Otellini setting out the chipmaker’s stall in a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The company has set up a $200m venture capital fund within its Intel Capital division to invest in …

Oracle has announced the availability of its 10g application server for grid computing, first launched with great fanfare in September. Application Server 10g uses workload management techniques to share loads across large numbers of processors in a grid configuration.
The server is accompanied by software tools designed to …

Computer Associates has entered the web services management field with the shipment of its Unicenter Web Service Distributed Management product, which has come out of its acquisition of Adjoin last summer.
CA aims to shake up this market, which has been the preserve of small specialists, with its own weight and with a host of …

A survey of European CIOs, published this week on the subject of Enterprise Content Management (ECM), reveals the rationale behind the Open Text - Ixos merger, showing Documentum as the European market leader with Open Text nowhere in sight.
Other strong players, only just behind Documentum in Europe include Vignette and …

Two announcements this week affect the Oracle vs Peoplesoft hostile merger, a Peoplesoft endorsement of the decision by the European Commission to carry out a deeper review, and some adjustments to the terms of Peoplesoft’s new refund program.
You couldn’t expect any other outcome from Peoplesoft other than glee, to the news …

IBM has responded to doubts over its commitment to its PC business and used the Comdex trade show to put new focus on the division.
It plans a major advertising and marketing campaign behind its PCs, particularly its laptops, and will integrate the PC group more tightly with other operations, enabling it to work closely with …

IBM and Hewlett-Packard have both registered
benchmark wins this week for their server lines,
IBM on High Performance supercomputing
tasks and HP on high throughput transaction
rates, running under Oracle.
IBM made great noise and bluster about its new
1350 AMD Opteron powered 1350 supercluster,
benchmarking a 48 way …

Intel has launched its Mobilized Software Initiative,
which aims to “change the way the industry thinks about the internet”. Previewed at its Developer Forum in September, the initiative has won the support of various big names including Microsoft, Sun, HP, IBM,
Adobe and Macromedia.
Intel is aiming to repeat its success of …

The analyst community has long been saying that it’s only a matter of time before Microsoft starts porting its applications, especially its server-based business applications, to Linux.
But one Microsoft notable, in the form of Gordon Mangione, corporate vice president, SQL Server Team, made a strong and clear statement that …

IBM has announced a new global offering
that allows customers to defer all payments
on IBM information technology until 2004, tied to low rate five-year financing deals.
The deal is designed to stack business into IBM’s fourth quarter with payment deferred until afterwards. Shipments must be on or prior to December 31.
The …

Novell this week announced support for Microsoft Exchange 2003 via its Ximian Connector for Microsoft Exchange. This will allow Linux and Sun Solaris clients the same rights, privileges and controls when attached to Exchange as a Windows email client.
This means that Linux desktop users can manage their e-mail, calendars, group …

If you were handed a proposal from a software company that is in business reporting, but which is far bigger than Crystal Decisions, you'd take it seriously right?
Likewise if that company was in development frameworks and it claimed to be bigger than BEA.
What about if it also offered Business Process Management software and …

Siebel may have had a hesitant start in the hosted applications market, but it is now moving forward aggressively with two acquisitions and a partnership with Sun.
The company has acquired services-based software house UpShot for up to $70m in cash and the assets of business applications house Motiva for about $3m. The former …

BEA has released the first fruits of its acquisition of CrossLogix in February with the launch of WebLogic Enterprise Security for managing application security policy.
The product revolves around CrossLogix' centralized authentication policy manager and takes BEA into the increasingly hot market of application level protection …

Sun has hit back at Hewlett-Packard's 'Linux Lifeline' migration offer for Sun customers. Sun said the plan, which offers $25,000 worth of free porting services to users moving off Solaris to HP Linux, was a "PR campaign with little substance, no real money and no value proposition".
The company did not come up with any …